Death Toll Reaches 52 in Deadly Storms, 30 Across Tennessee
Rescue Workers Search Door-to-Door in Rural Areas
Last Edited: Wednesday, 06 Feb 2008, 4:43 PM CST
Created: Wednesday, 06 Feb 2008, 8:09 AM CST
This photo was taken near Brownsville at Hwy 54 and Hwy 14 at about 5:40 p.m.
Tuesday. Photo courtesy of George and Christy Wren. SideBar
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LAFAYETTE, Tenn. (WHBQ FOX13 myfoxmemphis.com) -- The National Weather Service
has posted tornado watches for parts of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle
and western Georgia, but the storm system that spawned a deadly cluster of
tornadoes in five Southern states overnight appears to be weakening as it moves
eastward.
Rescue crews, some with the help of the National Guard, have been going
door-to-door looking for victims in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas
and Alabama. At least 52 people have been reported dead, but none in
Mississippi.
Residents have been trying to salvage what they can from homes reduced to piles
of debris.
In Washington, President Bush said he called the governors of the five states to
assure them the administration was ready to help and to deal with any emergency
requests. He says those affected should "know the American people are standing
with them."
Seavia Dixon, whose Atkins, Ark., home was shattered, stood Wednesday morning in
her yard, holding muddy baby pictures of her son, who is now a 20-year-old
soldier in Iraq. Only a concrete slab was left from the home.
The family's brand new white pickup truck was upside-down, about 150 yards from
where it was parked before the storm. Another pickup truck the family owned sat
crumpled about 50 feet from the slab.
"You know, it's just material things," Dixon said, her voice breaking. "We can
replace them. We were just lucky to survive."
In many places, the storms struck as Super Tuesday primaries were ending. As the
extent of the damage quickly became clear, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama
and Mike Huckabee paused in their victory speeches to remember the victims.
Among the victims were Arkansas parents who died with their 11-year-old daughter
in Atkins, a community of about 3,000 approximately 60 miles northwest of Little
Rock.
Ray Story tried to get his 70-year-old brother, Bill Clark, to a hospital after
the storms leveled his mobile home in Macon County, about 60 miles northeast of
Nashville. Clark died as Story and his wife tried to navigate debris-strewn
roads in their pickup truck, they said.
"He never had a chance," Story's wife, Nova, said. "I looked him right in the
eye and he died right there in front of me."
The system moved eastward to Alabama Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and gusty
wind, causing several injuries in counties northwest of Birmingham. The National
Weather Service posted tornado watches for parts of southern Alabama, the
Florida Panhandle and western Georgia. Weather service experts also investigated
damage in Indiana to see if it was caused by tornadoes.
An apparent tornado damaged eight homes in Walker County, Ala., and a pregnant
woman suffered a broken arm when a trailer home was tossed by the wind, said
county emergency management director Johnny Burnette.
"I was there before daylight and it looked like a war zone," he said.
Northeast of Nashville, a spectacular fire erupted at a natural gas pumping
station. The station took a direct hit from the storm, but no deaths connected
to the fire were reported.
About 200 yards from the edge of the plant, Bonnie and Frank Brawner picked
through the rubble of their home for photographs and other personal items. The
storm sheared off the second story of the home.
"We had a beautiful neighborhood, now it's hell," said Bonnie Brawner, 80.
More than 20 students were stuck behind wreckage and jammed doors, mostly for
short periods, in battered dormitories at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.
Tornadoes had hit the campus in the past, and students knew the drill when they
heard sirens, said Union University President David S. Dockery.
"When the sirens went off the entire process went into place quickly," Dockery
said. Students "were ushered into rooms, into the bathrooms, interior spaces."
He said about 50 students were taken to a hospital and nine stayed through the
night. But all would be fine, he said. The students "demonstrated who they are
and I'm so proud of them."
In Memphis, high wind collapsed the roof of a Sears store at a mall. Debris that
included bricks and air conditioning units was scattered on the parking lot,
where about two dozen vehicles were damaged.
A few people north of the mall took shelter under a bridge and were washed away
in the Wolf River, but they were pulled out with only scrapes, said Steve Cole
of the Memphis Police Department.
Winter tornadoes are not uncommon. The peak tornado season is late winter
through midsummer, but the storms can happen at any time of the year with the
right conditions.
But this batch was the nation's worst in a 24-hour period since May 3, 1999,
when some 50 people died in Oklahoma and Kansas.
The tornadoes could be due to La Nina, the cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean
that can cause changes in weather patterns around the world. It is the opposite
of the better-known El Nino, a periodic warming of the same region.
Recent studies have found an increase in tornadoes in parts of the southern U.S.
during the winter during a La Nina. On Jan. 8, tornadoes were reported in
Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. Two died in the Missouri
storms.
In this round of storms, there were 67 eyewitness accounts of tornadoes but the
number of twisters likely won't be that high because some probably saw the same
funnel cloud, said Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at the
National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. He said a reasonable guess is
that 30 to 40 tornadoes touched down.
Most communities had ample warning that the storms were coming -- forecasts had
warned for days severe weather was possible. But in at least one rural
community, there was no siren to alert residents the severe weather had arrived.
In Kentucky's Allen County, officials have requested funding for a siren at the
fire station, but don't have one yet. Even if they did, officials wondered if it
would have helped.
"It came in quick," Judge-Executive Bobby Young said. "Probably, warning devices
wouldn't have helped any."
------
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Ryan Lenz in
Greenville, Ky., Jon Gambrell in Atkins, Ark., Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.,
and Woody Baird in Memphis, Tenn.
1.5 feet of snow expected here by noon 
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